Kelly Allen, the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, found herself torn between the desire to encourage public participation and the need to maintain decorum as the audience became restive or rowdy.
On several occasions during Monday’s proceedings, Allen wound up chiding the crowd for applauding or booing as various speakers wound up their remarks. She wasn’t any more mollified when some spectators started snapping their fingers as an alternative to clapping, and she even found it necessary to bring down the gavel when some assertions from fellow commissioner Ed Priola drew heckles from large swaths of the audience.
Allen and her colleagues were nevertheless willing to address one pointed demand that periodically arose about the board’s stance on the non-disclosure agreements that data center developers have extracted from public officials in some jurisdictions.
Allen stated point blank that “we do not do nondisclosure agreements” in Alamance County, while Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, insisted he considers these self-imposed gag orders to be unethical. Priola also said he doesn’t plan to see his own signature gracing these secrecy deals.
“We do not do nondisclosure agreements.”
– County commissioner chairman Kelly Allen
“Non-disclosure agreements – I have never liked. This has to be done in the open.”
– County commissioner vice chairman Steve Carter
“Non-disclosure agreements – I have never liked,” he asserted. “This has to be done in the open.”
Meanwhile, Steve Carter was at some pains to assure the audience that he and his colleagues really do heed the feedback they receive during public hearings.
“A lot of people think that we know how we’re going to vote weeks before we go into the meeting,” he confessed. “But sometimes the decision on a vote is made while we’re sitting at this table.”
Carter seemed to demonstrate this point later that night when he suggested a year-long moratorium in lieu of the six-month halt that the county attorney had recommended to the commissioners. Commissioner Sam Powell put things even more explicitly before the 5-to-0 decision in favor of this 12-month halt in data center development.
“I’ve been to a lot of public hearings,” he confessed, “and this is the only one I can remember where all the comments went in the same direction…And it’s not just Alamance County. People all over the country are doing the same thing.
